Theories Of Substance Dualism

Substance dualism is the perspective that both physical substance and mental substance make up the world and exist independently. This philosophy sees the mind and the body as two separate things. As a result, the mind cannot be explained in terms of the brain. Substance dualism can be explained by the separation of pure mind and pure matter. Reductive physicalism is different than substance dualism because they do not include nonphysical stuff. This perspective views the world as made only of physical stuff. They see the mind as physical because it is composed of cells. When there is a physical change in the brain, that change will cause an alteration in the person’s personality or mood. The three modern views discussed in the essays …show more content…
Zimmer discusses how humans possess a “self” in their brain. This allows us to differentiate ourselves from others. The neuro-biological view focuses on the brain and how it becomes aware of differences when our predictions aren’t being supported. The brain will increase our self-awareness to make us pay more attention, which causes our actions to change in order to get the results we want. When we do not get the results we expected, our brain will blame other external causes that we cannot control. The sociological theory is the last modern view that was discussed by Lawler. The main focus of this view is how social conditions give rise to perceptions and produce our identities. The sociological view bases our identities off of people and their social relations. We achieve our identity because we share common and different identities with others. According to Freud, people will often create minor differences between themselves and others in order to create a more unique identity. The evolutionary theory would be an example of reductive physicalism. This view focuses on the physical stuff, such as genes, as a cause of an individual’s behavior. The evolutionary theory explains that the physical genes are the cause for the changes in the personality or mood. The theory also does not look into the nonphysical stuff, such as the mind, as often as the other …show more content…
Unlike the other theories, the sociological theory focuses more on how the person interacts with their surroundings. This can help determine whether the human is a person or not. The criteria for personhood, which involves reasoning, communication, self-awareness, etc., is already studied within individuals when using the sociological theory. The sociological theory explains a “person” the best because the main purpose of the theory is to look at how people are influenced by social interactions, which makes it easier when determining who fits the concept and who does